| a |
"Molly",
from Johnny Web
What a surprise this
was. It's PG-13 and I never heard of it, but I
picked it up because it's a 1999 movie, yesterday
was the national release day, and the Blockbuster
label said it had nudity. A couple minutes later
I'm staring at Elisabeth Shue stark naked. As a
credit to the usually sexy actress, I must say
that she deliberately uglied herself up to play
the part of an autistic woman who had no interest
in her own physical appearance, so she is a bit
flabby and is exaggerating it by slouching and
slumping a lot. But what the hell, it's still
Shue stark naked, which is nothing to complain
about.
This movie had some
potential, but they blew it. It is fundamentally
the umpteenth remake of Flowers for Algernon
where someone with a learning or communication
impairment finds a miraculous way to become
normal until the treatment starts to fail, and
they ultimately revert. How many frickin times
have they made this story? Anyway, I'd be OK
watching the story if they kept it
semi-plausible, but they always have to turn it
into a comic book plot
First, She not only
becomes normal, she becomes a super genius who
memorizes both scientific and literary books with
ease. Second, and still worse, she acquires other
powers as well. Through super hearing, or a sixth
sense, or super sight combined with lip reading
(they never explained how she did it), she made a
verbatim simultaneous translation of an argument
between a manager and an umpire, even though she
was sitting in the nosebleed seats at the time.
What is that all about. She also exhibited
detailed mind-reading capabilities, and the
script even hinted at her ability to communicate
with the dead. I'm not kidding. I will start
kidding soon, though
Now isn't it enough that
an autistic person becomes completely normal
almost overnight? Wouldn't that alone be too much
to deal with, and wouldn't that be enough to make
all the human points involved, to show she was
still the same person either way, just reflecting
other facets of her mind, or to show how other
people react to her in both states. But,
no-o-o-o-o, she has to be like the frickin
scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz and start reciting
the Pythagorean Theorem as soon as the Wizard
hands him the paper. (Wizard of Oz is the
autistic character's favorite movie, by the way.)
Then she cures cancer, cancels Montel Williams,
corrects the faults in the Mars probe, solves
Fermat's last theorem, finishes the Unfinished
Symphony, and reverses global warming. Then she
teams up with Captain America to defeat the Red
Skull.
It does have some
genuinely warm moments, and some genuinely funny
ones, but overall it missed out on everything it
could have been. Yup, it could have been a
touching human drama, but it isn't. It's a
cartoon. Pity. Elisabeth Shue (1,
2,
3,
4)
"Showgirls",
from Tuna
Finally on a Region 1
DVD. Regarding this much discussed movie, I have
only one point today which hasn't been widely
made. Many, many IMDb members are now contending
that this isn't really just a cheesy melodrama,
but is in fact a brilliant satire on American
life. Yeah, right. I been up and down this ol'
country a bit, met with hobos and hookers and
media stars and senators and corporate giants and
hippies and rednecks and evil drug-dealin'
scumbags and topless dancers and priests, and
never once did I see any person behave in a way
which in any way resembled anything in this
movie. I do think the point could be altered a
bit to make it accurate. Here are my suggested
re-statements:
It's a satire of what
people who don't understand America think
American life might be like, or It's a satire on
the way American life is depicted in mass culture
media like soap operas.
The movie is a study in
contrasts. On a scale from 1 to 10, the script is
a solid zero, and the acting varies all along the
scale. But the visuals are actually pretty good,
and some of them, like the Vegas reviews, are
extraordinarily good. In this respect, showing
the simultaneous beauty and excesses of Vegas
showmanship, Verhoeven does almost do what
Fellini did for the idle Romans of many
centuries. That I will concede. But when the
re-created shows are not on the docket, the thing
is generally of lower caliber than an average
week on Days of Our Lives. Verhoeven once was a
fine talent, who made respected European movies,
then he migrated to Hollywood and made some
pretty good Hollywood movies like Total Recall
and Basic Instunct. After that, it must have been
like when Molly's miracle cure wore off, and in
the last eight years he's only turned out two
films: Starship Troopers and Showgirls.
"Nuff said. His next movie is a sci-fi pic
about an invisibility serum. The film is called
The Hollow Man, and it opens in the USA this
summer. OK, enough talk, here's the babes:
Gina Gershon (Thumbnails); (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7)
Dame Elizabeth Berkley (Thumbnails); (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19) Strippers (Thumbnails); (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8)
Show Dancers (Thumbnails); (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8)
"Coming
Apart", from Johnny Web
I think Leonard Maltin
wrote a one line review of "From Hell It
Came". His review: "And Back to Hell it
Can Go". The same review could apply here.
Roger Ebert can't ever sit down to write his Trib
column and say "boy, is this movie one
fucked up piece of shit.". But I can. And
hereby do. This movie came out in 1969, lasted
about a week in the theaters, and then
disappeared until now. Rip Torn plays a
psychiatrist who keeps an apartment in the city.
In that apartment he secretly tapes his
encounters with various women, almost all of a
sexual nature. The entire movie is filmed by a
still B&W camera shooting into a couch in
front of a mirror, as if it were simply a
compilation of the actual films made by the
character. I'm sure existentialists and
proponents of cinema verite would argue that this
is a lost work of genius. I was impressed by the
actors' ability to maintain the illusion of
reality, and with the hollow irony of some of the
conversations, but not with much else.
Anyway, who gives a
rat's patoot? The key point for us is that this
was some pretty naughty stuff in 1969, including
Sally Kirkland full-frontals, transvestites, an
orgy, and a very strange scene in which a naked
Kirkland masturbates by humping Torn's leg.
Sally Kirkland (1,
2,
3,
4)
Lynn Swan (1,
2)
Lois Markle Megan McCormick
"Dark
Harbor", from Johnny Web
This movie is one of
those mysterious plots with a small number of
characters trapped alone in a deserted place, and
zillions of looping plot twists, ala Sleuth or
Deathtrap, complete with the shocking surprise
ending. It's a pretty bad flick with some
off-kilter performances, and even most of the
plot twists turn out to be the old "and then
I woke and it was all a dream" cliche. Even
classical actors like Alan Rickman can screw the
pooch when miscast. Rickman's voice doesn't sound
too bad at all with his normal accent, but an
(artificial sounding) American drawl makes it
about the most irritating male voice I've ever
heard, except maybe for Peewee Herman. Also, the
sound is mixed wrong in some scenes, and you
can't hear the actors over the rain or ambient
noise, and then other scenes are so loud you'll
have to reach for the remote. Very sloppy stuff.
Lovely cinematography,
though, of autumnal New England. Misty rains,
mysterious islands, spooky old cottages.
I regret to report that
while the mid-fiftyish Mr Rickman did do a full
frontal, the attractive mid-thirtyish Miss Polly
Walker showed nothing of substance. wet nighty nighty. Exquisite camera shot, in which
the director somehow held both the background and
foreground in focus, no small trick when the
background is a mist-shrouded forest.
Unfortunately, Miss Walker was obviously wearing
other clothes beneath the nighty. she removes her bra to get some
sun. Oh, yeah,
that's necessary. Like you'll get some deep tan
lines sunning in Maine for a few minutes in
October. That's where Rose McGowan got her tan.
Another beautiful shot, however.
|
a |
